Jesus has traveled north to preach in the synagogue. He has returned to Nazareth, His hometown. And what He preaches shows that He is the one who fulfills God’s promises.
Jesus unrolls the scroll containing the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, to read the appointed reading for the day. He finds the right spot and reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” And after Jesus had read the Scripture, He sat down.
Jesus unrolls the scroll containing the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, to read the appointed reading for the day. He finds the right spot and reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” And after Jesus had read the Scripture, He sat down.
Now, with church architecture being what it is today, we might think that Jesus went back to His pew. But that’s not what St. Luke means when he tells us that Jesus “sat down” and that all eyes were on Him. Unlike today, back then, someone usually sat down to preach, not stand up. So, when Jesus sits down, He’s letting everyone know that He’s getting ready to address them.
And what makes what Luke writes, even more, perplexing, is that Jesus didn’t even finish the final verse He was reading from Isaiah. That could be why all the people fixed their eyes on Him so intently. Our Lord finishes speaking the Scriptures with: “To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus cuts that verse off in mid-sentence. The rest of the verse reads, “…and the Day of vengeance of our God.”
It’s no wonder the whole synagogue stares at Him. Like us, they had a cycle of readings. So, over the years, people knew what text to expect on a given day. And Jesus reads the text. But He stops, not finishing the last verse.
So, they wait to hear what Jesus will say, who takes the liberty not to complete the assigned text for the day. Jesus preaches: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” What Isaiah foretold long ago, Jesus says is now taking place before them. The Holy Spirit has anointed, has Christ-ed, has Messiah-ed, this Jesus, whom they have known since childhood, to proclaim good news, to release those held in bondage, and to proclaim the Lord’s favor. There, in the flesh, is their hope, salvation, and life.
In that passage, we find the central message our Lord preached throughout Judea and Galilee. He proclaimed good news, and liberty, and recovery of sight, and the year of the Lord’s favor. But Jesus stopped short of “the Day of vengeance.”
Why would He do that? Jesus didn’t fulfill that Day in their hearing. That Day of Vengeance will come later, at the end of time, for those who don’t believe that He is the prophesied Messiah. That’s when Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. But today, Jesus comes to release prisoners from bondage and set them free.
What is this bondage of which both Isaiah and Jesus speak? Is it a bondage to illness? Is it some psychological problem? No, not such problems, in one of themselves. For illness and psychological problems, and such as those, are but symptoms, symptoms of our fall into sin.
The bondage that God the Father sent Jesus to undo is that ancient slavery, which had captured all creation because of sin. It is the bondage to sin and death, to corruption and decay. It’s a bondage that keeps the entire world cut off from God and the Life He both is and gives.
Do you see the world that way? During the week, when you’re going about your life, do you look out at the world and see this? Do you recognize the enslaving influence of sin and death, which corrupts and taints everything?
Every now and again, we cross paths with someone who gets us angry. If you’re driving on Route 13, and someone cuts you off in traffic, you experience the selfishness of sin firsthand—in you and the other driver. After the anger, do you ever look at that driver through different eyes? Do you see him as a fallen human, like you, pushed and pulled by sin’s corruption, sinking under the weight of his fallen nature? Maybe, his frailty even blinds and overwhelms him.
That’s our shared, human condition in this fallen world. When Jesus says He comes to set the oppressed free, to recover sight for the blind, He doesn’t mean this in only in a physical way. And neither does Jesus mean this only in a spiritual way. Jesus comes to set us free from sin—both physically and spiritually.
Why is this? It’s because sin’s corruption takes our entire person hostage—both body and spirit. Your physical ailments reveal the spiritual corruption within you. That’s why some are blind from birth. That’s why we get sick. That’s why some people are hateful and wicked. That’s why it feels that a never-ending line of troubles clamor to greet us in this world, for sin has corrupted and enslaved all creation.
But if the entire world is in bondage to sin, what do you see when you look at yourself? The same shackles of sin also enslave you. St. John says, “If we claim to be without sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
But you should also see those sin-enslaving shackles lying beneath your feet. You should see that Jesus has broken those binding chains. They now have no eternal power over you—unless you give them that power, for Jesus has emptied sin of its condemning strength.
Why is this? It’s because Jesus has come to proclaim His good news to you. Jesus has come to open your eyes from the blindness of sin’s corruption. He does this, so you may see the Truth in the clear, revealing light of His kingdom. Jesus has come to set you free from that wicked abductor and liar, the devil, who has subjugated the human race through the fear of death since Adam and Eve’s fall into sin.
Jesus has broken your shackles because, by God’s grace, you have died to sin with Jesus in your baptism. You are born from above to new life by the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit gives you the gift of God’s Life—to you, all so you can be His, and He can be yours, into eternity.
How invigorating! But we still need to be careful. For we haven’t yet reached the end of time, when Jesus returns on the Last Day. And so, sin and death still exist because Jesus hasn’t returned to create the new heaven and earth.
And so, as long as we are in this world, we are in constant combat against sin’s corruption and the power of death. Those evil forces are always trying to invade and re-kidnap us, to steal us from our heavenly Father’s household, as happened in Eden. And these evil, demonic powers have a foothold through our fallen flesh, from which we will not be free until our sinful flesh is no more.
That’s why we have a Lenten season every year, to remind us, to call us back to repentance. But those demonic powers fall away and flee before the cross of Christ. Through Jesus’ cross and the forgiveness of sins in His blood, those demonic powers do not rule over you. Since your baptism, the Holy Spirit now rules you. Jesus even said that of Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me…”
When did the Holy Spirit anoint Jesus? At His baptism. And the same applies to you. The Spirit of the Lord is also upon you, given to you at your baptism.
And so, the Spirit gives you a new heart—a heart after God’s own heart. And this is because God has brought you into a new reality—the reality of being a new man in Christ. After all, you’ve been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. And He is Himself the New Man—the New Adam, the Kingdom of Heaven, and Son of God. You have died with Christ, and you are now alive in Him by the Holy Spirit.
God, the Holy Spirit, gives you this new reality of Jesus: His release from sin and death, and rebirth into the communion of divine life. He does this by physical means, the water of baptism, but it is taken to heart and made your own through faith.
This faith has within it a worldview from which you live. Part of that is coming to hear the preached Word of Christ. That Word calls you to repent and enter again into Christ’s forgiveness. But it’s also learning what it means to be a baptized child of God. Your entire life here is an unfolding, of learning, what it means that you are His baptized child. What God has for you is beyond our understanding, and so we can never exhaust what God wants us to know.
Eventually, we will all be at the same place: gathered before the throne of Jesus on the Last Day. When that happens, the world’s deceiving priorities and corrupted values will be no more. On that Day, all that will matter is whether you are in Christ—or lost in sin, cut off from life, and bereft of God’s Life through the forgiveness of sins.
Having a deeper understanding of the faith grounds you more deeply in Christ. And the deeper you are in Christ, the weaker the fallen ways of this world become, which can topple your faith in Him. A man once cried out to Jesus, “I do believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). That is true for us all.
Why else would the book of Hebrews tell us: “And let us… not neglect our worship meetings, as some are in the habit of doing. Instead, encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
So you may greet that Day with joy, Jesus has come to proclaim (through His appointed servant) your liberty and freedom, your forgiveness, hope, and joy. Jesus proclaims and gives you such life, where only sin and death once reigned. And Jesus lays it all before you as a gift. Indeed, today is the acceptable year of the Lord. Amen.
